FILM · 1948
Key Largo
46 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (46)
- #001
Lionel Barrymore was severely crippled by arthritis (clearly visible in his hands) and confined to a wheelchair, which makes the scene in which Bay Temple stands up and falls while striking Toots more than just a dramatic moment.
- #002
In a classic example of a director behaving in an emotionally manipulative way, John Huston did not tell Claire Trevor until the day of shooting when she would sing her song solo. Trevor was not a trained singer and had not even rehearsed the song. She was also terrified of having to perform it directly in front of the A-list actors seated in front of her. The result was a hesitant, tense and uncomfortable rendition — exactly the emotion Huston had hoped to capture.
- #003
Although they played enemies on screen, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson treated each other with great respect off screen. Bogart insisted that Robinson be treated like a major star and would not come to the set until Robinson was ready. He often went to Robinson's trailer and personally accompanied him to the set.
- #004
In the film, James Temple recounts the 1935 hurricane that devastated Matacumbe Key, one of the worst hurricanes in US history. Most of the storm's victims were First World War veterans who had built the Florida Keys section of US Highway 1, also known as the Overseas Highway. Part of that highway is visible in the film's opening shots. The storm also produced the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded on land in the North American continent.
- #005
The main character, Frank McCloud, recounts that he served alongside Nora's late husband in the Second World War battle at San Pietro, Italy. Director/co-writer John Huston had been involved in that battle while in the US Army's film unit, as the creator of the documentary film San Pietro (1945).
- #006
When Claire Trevor asked John Huston for ideas about her character, he told her: "You're a drunkard woman whose elbows are always a little too big, your voice a little too loud, a little too polite. You're very sad, very resigned." She later leaned on the bar of the film set in a way that summed up the character for her.
- #007
The character of Johnny Rocco was modeled on Al Capone, who had retired to Florida and died there a year before this film was made from complications of advanced syphilis. Screenwriter Richard Brooks later explained that he also incorporated biographical details of another famous gangster, Lucky Luciano, into Rocco's character.
- #008
Santana was the name of the yacht Humphrey Bogart bought from June Allyson and Dick Powell. It had previously belonged to George Raft and Ray Milland. He loved the Santana so much that he named his production company after it.
- #009
While scouting locations in the Florida Keys, John Huston asked a hotel owner where the storm cellar was. The man told him that if you dug three meters down you would hit the ocean.
- #010
Claire Trevor's Best Supporting Actress Oscar was this film's only Academy Award nomination.
- #011
Actor Harry Lewis (Toots) founded the popular Hamburger Hamlet chain, which he sold for 29 million dollars in 1987. He died in 2013 at the age of 93.
- #012
The dilapidated hotel where much of the drama takes place was built on the Warner Bros. backlot, along with the beach area. The hurricane exteriors were actually taken from stock footage used in Night Unto Night (1949), a Ronald Reagan melodrama shot at Warner Bros. the same year.
- #013
The character of Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor) was based on the real-life moll Gay Orlova (gangster Lucky Luciano's girlfriend), who at the time was believed to have been executed by a German firing squad. Orlova, however, survived, and was known to be living in Paris as late as 1954, trying to join Luciano in Italy.
- #014
John Huston's scapegoat on the production was Harry Lewis. The inexperienced actor was not very good, and Huston bullied him mercilessly to get a performance out of him. Lewis would later say, however, that Huston was the only director who had really worked with him. The character's loud clothes and high-pitched laugh were Huston's ideas and helped Lewis register on screen in a way he would never manage again.
- #015
This was the fifth and final film in which Humphrey Bogart appeared with Edward G. Robinson. The previous films were Bullets or Ballots (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) and Brother Orchid (1940).
- #016
The scene in which Claire Trevor drunkenly sings "Moanin' Low" was inspired by a real-life incident during the Second World War. While Humphrey Bogart was entertaining US troops stationed in Italy, his then-wife, the actress Mayo Methot, insisted on doing an impromptu song number despite being quite drunk and having been warned. Stumbling over forgotten lyrics and singing consistently off-key, she delivered a winged performance that was an unforgettable embarrassment.
- #017
Felipa Gómez, who played the Old Indian Woman, was born only five years after the end of the American Civil War.
- #018
The film was shot in only 78 days and, apart from a few shots used in the opening scenes in Florida, was filmed almost entirely on the Warner Brothers lot.
- #019
When Lauren Bacall struggled with playing the heterosexual female lead, John Huston twisted her arm to put some emotion into her face.
- #020
The film version of "Key Largo" has very little to do with Maxwell Anderson's original play. For example, in the film version the names of all the characters in the play were changed. This was very unusual for a play by Anderson, who was one of the most respected American playwrights of the time and whose best-known plays were generally filmed faithfully to the original.
- #021
In the five films in which Robinson and Bogart appeared together, Robinson killed Bogart once, Bogart killed Robinson once, and the two killed each other twice.
- #022
The film was based on Maxwell Anderson's popular Broadway play, which starred Paul Muni as a fatalistic former member of the Loyalist army returning from the Spanish Civil War. For the film version, the time period and setting were changed. Director John Huston and screenwriter Richard Brooks rewrote the main character, Frank McCloud, making him a World War II veteran who had served in the Italian campaign. The two writers also emphasized the idealism of Franklin D. Roosevelt's early years and how that idealism began to erode for some with the spread of organized crime into urban areas.
- #023
The Writers Guild nominated John Huston and Richard Brooks for Best Written American Drama.
- #024
Jay Silverheels, the Tonto of television's The Lone Ranger (1949) (1949-1957) series, appears in this 1948 film as Tom Osceola.
- #025
The medals on Mr. Temple's desk that his son won and that Frank McCloud briefly holds are the Silver Star (held near the beginning of the film) and the Purple Heart (held near the end of the film).
- #026
John Huston initially wanted Charles Boyer for the role played by Edward G. Robinson, but Jack Warner considered Boyer box-office poison.
- #027
Claire Trevor sings "Moanin' Low" a cappella. The song was popularized in the early 1930s by Libby Holman.
- #028
The film was shot in 1948. That same year, late in the season, two major hurricanes that directly affected the Florida Keys occurred less than a month apart. (See the 7th and 8th hurricanes of 1948.)
- #029
Maxwell Anderson's original Broadway production of "Key Largo" opened on November 27, 1939, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and ran for 105 performances. The original stage cast included Paul Muni, Uta Hagen and James Gregory in his first Broadway character role.
- #030
When the film first opened as a play several years earlier, its premiere was held at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Ethel was Lionel's younger sister.
- #031
The film marks the reunion on screen of Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor 10 years after they had appeared together in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938). Comparing the two films shows how the fortunes of all three actors had changed over the intervening years - Bogart had been promoted from villain to leading man, for Robinson the situation was the reverse, and Trevor had fallen from female lead to second female lead.
- #032
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the film on November 28, 1949, with Edward G. Robinson reprising his role from the film.
- #033
Frank McCloud tells Rocco that he enlisted in the army for "some words," and quotes them; the lines are roughly taken from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1942 State of the Union address.
- #034
Edward G. Robinson, the main villain and second-billed after Humphrey Bogart, does not appear until the 26th minute of the film.
- #035
Body count: 8 if you also include two characters shot just off screen and one character who falls into the sea.
- #036
All the veterans on the train that derailed in the 1935 hurricane survived miraculously.
- #037
Another train was stranded in Key West. At the time, F. E. C. ran a morning train to Miami, held it at Key West, and returned in the evening. The train tried to turn back, but the conductor felt conditions were too dangerous. Because of the Labor Day weekend and the expected increase in passengers in case veterans later had to be evacuated, the trains carried extra cars.
- #038
When Johnny Rocco comes downstairs after his bath, he is putting on a tie. It bears a three-leaf poison ivy vine, a sign of his monstrous nature.
- #039
Harry Lewis and his wife Marilyn founded the famous Hamburger Hamlet restaurant chain.
- #040
Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor again played a quarrelsome couple in Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), starring Kirk Douglas — this time as a married one.
- #041
The rescue train named "nailed" in the film had been requested hours earlier by the old work crew, but the Florida East Coast Rwy. was operating under a bankruptcy receiver and could do nothing without his approval, not even fire up the locomotive. He was finally found playing golf in the Jacksonville area and approved the run. The train was delayed while the boiler heated up, then held up by "open" bridges for ships fleeing an approaching storm, then caught by windblown cables, after which the train crew decided it was better to reposition the locomotive for the return trip.
- #042
When the film was made, Key West was indeed the southernmost point of the United States, but today that is the southern tip of the Big Island in Hawaii. Key West is the southernmost point of the *continental* United States.
- #043
The film is referenced in Bertie Higgins's 1981 number-one hit song "Key Largo."
- #044
In this film Humphrey Bogart's character is taken hostage by a gang of criminals, while in The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Desperate Hours (1955) he played the head of a gang of criminals holding others hostage.
- #045
Rocco's character was modeled on Al Capone, who retired to South Florida shortly after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
- #046
Humphrey Bogart and Claire Trevor had previously worked together in two films: Dead End (1937) and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938).
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